Negotiating Paradoxes: The Role of Affect in Explaining Women’s Support for the Far-Right in France

As the Radical Right Gender Gap narrows and loses significance in France, the growing appeal of Populist Radical Right parties like the National Rally and Reconquête! among non-typical voters calls for a deeper qualitative analysis. Drawing on insights from Political Science and Gender Studies, this study uses semi-structured interviews to investigate how affect shapes voters’ gender ideologies and political support. The research highlights the role of affects such as fear, common-sense, phantasmic insecurity, and love for the nation in understanding the way far-right ideology weaves existential threats and renders coherent tensions and paradoxes within its ideology. Specifically, these affects help supporters navigate tensions between their gender identity, political ideology, and party loyalty. Key findings reveal how far-right supporters overlook their parties’ gender equality agendas, how gender traditionalism appropriates equality discourses, and how fear and insecurity bolster anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments under the guise of protecting women’s security. Additionally, love for the nation reframes anti-immigrant discourses, enabling supporters to reject the “far-right” label. By integrating affect theory from a feminist perspective with a political application, this study contributes to understanding the emotional and gendered dimensions of far-right politics, challenging the notion of politics as purely rational.